Reaching out
Portlandia, on the Portland Building in Portland, OR

A common thread through all of these topics is some flavor of engagement (yes, even 3D printing! I’ll explain below.). ‘Engagement’ has become a buzz word of sorts in museum technology circles. Why is it that we seem so preoccupied with defining ‘engagement’ (and non-engagement) and exploring its nuances? Has the relationship with our audiences changed recently? Or is this just new terminology for an old idea? I am not quite sure. But museum folks certainly seem excited about working with technology to develop new modes of engagement for our visitors, and even among ourselves. And in the process, it seems to me that those of us who work in museums are collaborating more than ever, with our colleagues, with artists, across institutions, and with our audiences.

Inspiration from Theater
The conference was book-ended by two plenary sessions informed by theater. Larry Friedlander, professor emeritus and co-director of the Learning Lab at Stanford, opened the conference by painting a picture of an increasingly global, boundary-less world of spectacle in a sea of information. Saturated with images that are devoid of context and history, today’s global citizens are jaded. Information is cheap, and it’s difficult for them to discern the difference between art and mere spectacle. Friedlander, who teaches Shakespeare and drama, used the bard to summarize the problem:

How with this rage shall
Beauty hold a plea,
Whose action is
No stronger than a flower?

So how can museums stand out and be heard in this mess? Friedlander’s suggestions seem incongruous at first: engage the viewer by challenging them. Make it hard. Don’t connect all the dots. Friedlander seemed to be arguing that engagement involves thinking and reflection, and that can only happen when you test the viewers’ assumptions and then provide a way of responding and sharing their own views. Watch Friedlander’s plenary talk on YouTube.

The closing plenary for the conference was dedicated to discussion of the theatrical phenomenon Sleep No More, and asked the question “What can museums learn from immersive theater?” A.R.T. producer, Diane Borger, was Skyped in to answer questions from the three panelists, Ed Rodley, Suse Cairns, and Seb Chan.

Even though I have experienced Sleep No More (SNM) myself, it’s a bit hard to explain. You roam around with a mask on in an old building. You can’t talk. You are essentially on-stage with the actors in a 5-story building, and can interact with the sets–open drawers, peek behind doors, tear up paper, climb in a bed (or bathtub). You see actors from time to time, as you move in and out of each others’ space (some fans will pick a specific character to follow through the space). You feel like a ghost, or a time traveler, existing on different plane of existence from the protagonists. Everyone’s experience is different. In the panel, Suse did an amazing job describing her own experience with SNM, in which one of the actors abducted her into a small room for a short time (jealous!). Immersion, unique experiences, personal encounters—these are the leitmotifs of SNM and immersive theater.

This is a very powerful form of engagement, clearly. All of the panelists described their experience with SNM as transformative; I certainly had a similar reaction, as has everyone I know who has experienced it.  So how can museums get some of this powerful juju?! I am not sure this question was answered in the session. Some interesting points were raised by comparing the production of SNM to the production of museum exhibitions; points about fiscal commitments and long-term sustainability, about disruption as a practice, about the role of volunteers, about the role of the physical environment in creating a sense of immersion. I feel like this conversation has just begun.

Games, Design Thinking, and Humor–FUN!
There was a lot of fun had at MW2013. Paige Dansinger drew the sessions and attendees, and watching her work and being her subject was super fun! Sessions on games, humor, and design thinking all addressed ways of not only injecting fun into the visitor experience, but also into the workplace. As to the question about whether museums should be fun—that’s apparently a debate. I have heard this ‘concern’ voiced in my own work. In a workshop about making games at the conference, Danny Birchall also raised the question in relation to games in museums. Well, I choose to say, yes! In a session on gamification, Kate Haley Goldman said that in her research she has found that museums are insecure about how fun they are; they think making games will make them more fun.

Games are certainly fun to create, but they are not easy. I attended a workshop on the first day about creating games and toys, in which we broke into groups and designed concepts for museum games. The thing that struck me about this process was how productively collaborative a rather large group of strangers could be when mobilized to create a fun experience. Workshop leaders Sharna Jackson and Danny Birchall both  talked about how key collaboration has been for them in their work designing games–both within the institution and with contractors. If you have to collaborate, it better be fun!

Speaking of having fun on the job, in a session about Humor as Institutional Voice, Aaron Cope showed us lots of cat images, and argued for the importance of having fun on the job, and exposing that to the public. He made the very important point that being playful and humorous says to our public “We walk among you.” One point Aaron made hit me hard: that in order to be playful about our work, we must have confidence in what we do. Is it possible that playfulness and fun can be confidence-builders?

Design thinking was another inspiring thread involving collaboration and fun, thanks to Dana Mitroff Silvers and her colleagues from the Stanford d.school, Molly Wilson and Maryanna Rogers. The first step of design thinking is to empathize, and that  definitely requires some engagement and collaboration. I see potential for design thinking strategies to really revolutionize the way we work. These strategies include making prototypes out of cardboard and ideas, asking innocent strangers to answer creative questions, and posting sticky notes everywhere! In many ways, I see it as about creating an environment for productive fun–games for working together. The authors built a website, Design Thinking for Museums as a hub for ideas, case studies, and toolkits about applying design thinking in museums

Curation & Crowdsourcing
The topics of curation and crowdsourcing merged into one another for me at the conference. In one session Laura Carletti gave an exhaustive overview of many of the different flavors of online crowdsourcing projects. Later, a Salon about crowdsourcing included curators who talked about what they called crowdsourcing inside the physical museum. One curator, Jo-Anne Birnie Danzker, talked passionately about a an exhibition she worked on in which she brought in a long-time museum visitor to co-curate an exhibition. This experience inspired the curator to think about ways to invite museum visitors to collaborate on curation and interpretation of the collection.  This was crowdsourcing to her–going out into the public and bringing them into the museum. This isn’t crowdsourcing as I had thought of it. In my mind, crowdsourcing needs a crowd and large batches of data that need to be slavishly read, analyzed, transcribed, coded. But the curator got me thinking about the type of engagement that my definition of crowdsourcing creates. Certainly, this is engagement too? Is collaboratively co-creating content for the museum that different from curation?

And thus we arrive at the question of curation. Who curates the museum? Who curates the Internet? Should museums be curating the Internet? I went to the Salon on the topic of curation in which these questions were raised. It was great to hear several curators speak up about their view of how curation is being changed and challenged by technology. My sense is that they were excited by possibilities, and grappling with how to embrace change. Koven Smith asked whether there is a new role/profession within museums emerging called something like ”digital curation”? And then, after a roundabout discussion in which the group considered the history of museums, scholarship, archives, and curators, Suse Cairns brought up the issue of scale. Museums have historically drawn authority from scarcity, from the uniqueness and rarity of their collection. What happens when museums embrace the plethora of images and information and objects that exist in the world. Where is authority in this? We were back at Larry Friedlander’s point about the unbound global world. And crowdsourcing.

3D Printing
I have been lazily following Liz Neely’s experiments with 3D printing over the past year. It’s v. cool technology, and I wondered whether there were applications in the museum. In her session “Please Feel the Museum”, Liz and Miriam Langer showed how 3D printing technology can be used to print art objects, that can then be used to engage our audiences. A 3D print of a museum object can be held and touched, unlike the real object—obviously, this can really make our collections come alive in a tangible way. 3D printing offers a way to create the ‘social object’ as Nina Simon describes it, an object that sparks conversation. And the process of creating 3D prints is also instructive. In the process of capturing an object digitally and transforming it into a 3D model, you must examine the object in detail–this requires close looking and analytical thinking about how the original object was constructed.

3D print of God Ganesha, Remover of Obstacles, 9th/10th century

Coda
There was more. I have written too much already, but here are a few more ideas gathered at MW2013 that resonated for me and I will be thinking about for a while >>

In an amazing session on Digital Strategy with inspirational case studies, most presenters asserted that it *is* the role of the technologists in the institution to teach, train, encourage, and support staff in the institution who want to learn about digital tools. And presenters created a zine, too – how cool.

Rob Stein and Rich Cherry presented the results of a survey that asked “What is a Museum Technologist Today?” Liz Neely stood up and asked how many people in attendance made up their job at some point in their career, and more than half the room raised their hands.

The Lightning Talks were awesome. I hope MW keeps this format, as it results in focused, fun presentations, and gives attendees a way to see into various aspects of museum work rather quickly. Check out Tim Svenonius’s talk Love Letters to Rothko. All of the Lightning Talks were recorded and are available on YouTube.

Christopher Williams, Detail from ‘Source…,’ 1981

My attention was grabbed at first my a series of images of JFK sourced form the JFK Library in Boston and presented by artist Christopher Williams. Williams looked in the archive for images on a particular day in 1963 in which Kennedy had his back to the camera–he found 4.  These images are mysterious on their own. They draw the viewer in to decode the larger story that the individual frames come from, particularly because they are drawn from a larger body of archival documents; from a larger historical narrative. This is a particular feeling that, for me, is unique to ephemeral photographs like this. It is a feeling of stumbling upon clues to lost histories, of discovering something in a small, accidentally captured moment that may turn out to be significant.

By selecting, and placing these 4 images together, Williams creates a new perspective on the archive, making a connection to the future in which Kennedy is shot in the back of the head.

Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan, ‘Evidence,’ 1977

The second work that sucked me in to decode the ephemeral is Evidence, 1977 by Mike Mandel and Larry Sultan. These artists sourced photographs (with NEA grant money) from various sources–government agencies like NASA, research labs, police departments, etc. Forty-two images from disparate organizations, and completely different contexts are arranged on the wall. Each image on its own is a mystery, and all of them together form no narrative at all, except perhaps the realization of how bizarre human behavior can be. Viewing this work feels like being an alien from another planet, trying to suss out why these humans do such strange things.

Bruce Conner, Still from ‘Crossroads,’ 1976

Finally, there is Bruce Connor’s film Crossroads from 1976. The original film is sourced from the U.S. Government’s documentation of nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific. Connor slowed the film down and set it to a modern, synthesizer-y sounding music. I entered the room at first in the middle of the film and thought I was viewing beautiful clouds from above, with a sea below. I didn’t get it. There was no mystery. It wasn’t until I went to read the label at the entrance to the viewing room that I realized the origins of the film, and suddenly the beauty I saw became nefarious.

In the late 1970s, when these works of art were created, the artists did not have easy access to archival imagery in the way that we do today via the Web. They took on the role of curator themselves, spending time with the archives, assembling images into a narrative (or challenging the very idea of narrative) out of these pieces of history, just as a curator would do. It was not common practice then for regular people to curate their own images and create commentary in blog posts and YouTube videos.

24 Nov

• Shitty @hertz rental car, insulation coming out from windshield. yfrog.com/nz3iqvuj

22 Nov

• @sluggernova @josephgruber @exposyourmuseum @5easypieces wow, it is a franchise! #LADrinkUP
• @ericdmj @jamesgleventhal for some reason I am feeling claustrophobic
• Ha! So true RT @homebrewer Tech people in museums: don’t fix random stuff because you can figure it out. You will own it forever.
• RT @amandafrench Amanda French Via @TAC_NISO: PressBooks, a WordPress-based ebook publishing platform, has been launched to the public: bit.ly/up7EoG #ebooks

21 Nov

• @5easypieces some seed money, perhaps?
• RT @shineslike suse cairns A quick blog post on my initial takeaways from #MCN2011 wp.me/p1wacw-jk #musetech #museums
• must start one this in L.A. Anyone? MT @5easypieces Continue the #mcn2011 conversation “Drinking About Museums” meetup: bit.ly/upIocu
• What goes on here?? RT @alaindebotton Another shot of the temple for atheists – something to start at home?! yfrog.com/h0ji7ynj
• RT @Sarah_Stierch Sarah Stierch Attending #MCN2011 made me realize my role in museums as a professional: “content creation” not necessarily relying on #newmedia.
• RT @micahvandegrift Micah Vandegrift cc: @huffpostcollege – MT @hacklibschool: [New] on the blog: “HuffPo: Helping or Hurting Libraries” by @deweysnotdead ow.ly/7AfbV

20 Nov

• @jamesgleventhal @ericdmj um….unframe me?
• #13 ~ coyote skulls @labreatarpits RT @p_sully Behind-the-Scenes Photos of Natural History: nyti.ms/ssIcLT wonderful… and a bit sad.
• @lili_czarina yes, agreed! will think about how as well….wiki? Does OSCI already have a centralized place for communication?
• @lili_czarina re: osci slides – thanks, yay!
• @MuseumCN Re: Prezi – will do, thanks!
• @MuseumCN what about Prezi? Is there a central place for sharing those?
• Home. (@ Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) w/ 162 others) 4sq.com/vY5bp6
• Good Q! @drbremm RT Does @ninaksimon consider herself a digital humanist? #thatcamp #mcn2011
• @ericdmj Yes! Was great to finally hang out! Come out to LA any time and I’ll show you around.

19 Nov

• Museums, Technology & Games Weekly is out! bit.ly/faT0F5 ▸ Top stories today via @lili_czarina @chinesepod @aridavidow
• @jonvoss bummed to have missed your thatcamp sesh. Will check out usergroup!
• RT @NancyProctor Nancy Proctor The Q they have been debating is not “are there too many museums” but “is there enough support (including funding) for museums? #MCN2011
• Not sure it’s fair for debaters to be allowed to watch our discussion @ the debate on Twitter. #MCN2011 greatdebate
• #thumbsup RT @homebrewer RT @shineslike: Just noticed Queen @tinabean is wearing her #MCN2011 president crown. Rock on.
• Good point from @rjstein about role of museums to step in where public education falls short. #MCN2011 #greatdebate
• Agree! What @ education role? RT @alleko #mcn2011 questions and answers are way too museum-centered. But do visitors want more museums?
• RT @billhd Bill Hart-Davidson #greatdebate #MCN2011 question “Are there too many museums?” < I say yes, as defined, but too few institutions to foster lifelong learning.
• RT @billhd Bill Hart-Davidson A rhetorician’s view of #greatdebate #MCN2011: affirmative side supports regulation, negative side supports free markets. Both risky. 1/2
• RT @ericdmj Eric D. M. Johnson .@rflouty: If we limit access to museums, esp in nations w/o oppy for access to culture, humanity will be in decline. #greatdebate #mcn2011
• RT @HstryQT Lori Phillips I see this going down a James Cuno v. @MaxAndersonUSA debate here in a second, re: role of encyclopedic art museums #thegreatdebate #mcn2011
• There are finite resources, not just funding. @bwyman #MCN2011 #greatdebate #toomanymuseums
• Is a museum a physical tangible place, or a conceptual construct? #MCN2011 #greatdebate
• Argument that we don’t have enough museums: we are service orgs, small museums do incredible service. #MCN2011 # greatdebate
• Argument that there are too many museums: security, spreadimg ourselves too thin, can’t care 4 what we have. #MCN2011 #greatdebate
• RT @thatcampmcn THATCamp MCN If you’ve got a #thatcamp #mcn2011 badge, you can come to the #MCN2011 plenary in Int’l North. Debate: “There are too many museums.”
• RT @5easypieces Koven J. Smith Kicking discussion about the meaning of museums in Manila, moderated by @nealstimler. This is where you want to be. #mcn2011
• Can’t handle conferencing anymore. Going to #thatcamp #MCN2011

18 Nov

• @pittypatsporch drinking moonshine and ankle breakers. Wow! #MCN2011
• ha! @micahvandegrift @HstryQT – check, check… 1-2, 1-2. (Totally followed and added you all to my “priority” twitter list! Great videos!)
• RT @musdok Ibd @jolifanta Curators busy with exhibitions, little time for collections. Academic knowledge is there, but no or little time for research.
• RT @forwardretreat Sarah Hromack @lili_czarina is rocking a truly compelling argument for the relationship between technology and publishing. #MCN2011, #horizonreport
• Liz from ArtIC makes great point about us media-literate types taking role of editor in shaping e-publishing. #MCN2011
• Sounds like I missed awesome sesh. MT @ericdmj RT @sherah1918: RT @sluggernova: @sherah1918 check! #hmnam lanyrd.com/2011/mcn2011/s… #MCN2011
• @ericdmj you would agree with that!
• #foodforthought RT @koko500 @jolifanta A friend of mine once said “all museums are history museums.” #MCN2011
• @dhwales agree. Not sure if s/b shift or coexistence #digitalhumanities #MCN2011
• RT @nhoneysett Nik Honeysett @nealstimler #MCN2011 Back to the future: in the 19th century more people were educated in #museums than universities
• RT @EMMAPALEY Fine, I’ll say it, since we’re all thinking it: these Getty guys seem to have a good grasp on all of this stuff. #DAM #MCN2011
• RT @ericdmj Eric D. M. Johnson Do history museums take art museums too much as a web model, treat objects as aesthetic objects w/o context? @sleonchnm in #hmnam #mcn2011
• @nhoneysett you think ther’s been a shift from authority to relevance in museums? #digitalhumanities #MCN2011
• @micahvandegrift liked your video!
• RT @micahvandegrift Micah Vandegrift RT @dzorich: Is it time to hire DH scholars in museums? And allow museum staff free time to explore DH? #digitalhumanities #MCN2011
• RT @innova2 Conxa Rodà “Content outlives devices” YES!!! @rjstein #mcn2011
• I like thinking of museums as “public history” institutions. #digitalhumanities #MCN2011
• Ha!! RT @mpedson (hah, I just posted like 20 tweets to #mcn2010 instead of #mcn2011. So much for going boldly into the future!)
• RT @EMMAPALEY Emma Whoops, Stanley Smith is the best. You guys, He’s a DAM genius. #MCN2011
• What is a ‘non-tradional’ scholar?? #digitalhumanities @mcn2011
• Do curators have time to be scolars? Do we bring academia in to the museum? Is it already there? @ digitalhumanities #MCN2011
• Me 3! RT @micahvandegrift me too! Hello all! RT @hstryqt: @nealstimler’s #digitalhumanities crowdsourced panel. Submit questions! #mcn2011
• @p_sully @jonvoss true collaboration, yay!
• Our presentation this a.m. about Digital Mellini (yes, need better name!), scholar collaboration + pub tool: bit.ly/w4hCom #mcn2011
• It all comes down to people. #mtogo #MCN2011
• RT @CharlesOuthier Charles Outhier 30 min video of @zbartrout discussing using the iPad w/group tours: youtu.be/jHr_799DFlI #mtogo #mcn2011
• Lesson for integrating media into existing learning programs in gallery – training! #MCN2011
• Use of iPad w/ docent tour lesson- avoid giving an iPad tour. #MCN2011
• Docents found most useful aspect of the iPad is pinching and zoomimg in to details of objects. Not the video and multimedia. #MCN2011
• Para move beyond the beaver pelt for in gallery tours! Scott Sayre #MCN2011
• Web-based vs. App debate is real! We debate it too! @emilylewblack #MCN2011
• We are at the point where we can no longer talk about content in web, mobile, or gallery. Is all ‘content’ now. @bwyman #MCN201!
• RT @p_sully Perian Sully access is easy. Context is hard. #mcn2011 #nhnam
• You need a lot of qa for Android Dev. #mcn2011
• RT @benwbrum Ben W. Brumfield I uploaded the slides for my #MCN2011 presentation on #crowdsourcing manuscript #transcription. manuscripttranscription.blogspot.com/2011/11/crowds…
• Think pt is sharing user pics MT @RyanD #mcn2011 want to know why high went w image recognition vs. QR codes or other ID tech.. seem simplr.
• Artclix rights issue dealt with by keeping user images on High’s servers. #MCN2011
• We will get on that! RT @Alex__Morrison RT @tristan_roddis: OH: unicorns are not in AAT #MCN2011
• Yes! MT @NancyProctor survey “lurkers” who read comments but don’t post – are they finding Artclix? comments useful/int’ing? #mtogo #mcn2011
• “Turns out image recognition is hard.” @bwyman #MCN2011
• RT @5easypieces Koven J. Smith
• Impressive that ArtClix is built entirely in HTML5. #mcn2011 #mobileday
• Artclix – how do you come up with a good app title? #MCN2011
• No! We do need a name for the tool, ideas? RT @jamesgleventhal @ericdmj @jolifanta & “Digital Mellini”? #mcn2011 #isitobvioustoothers?
• RT @mia_out Mia The links from @benwbrum ‘s Crowdsourcing Transcription at MCN 2011 bit.ly/uXQpbj #mcn2011 #onlinecollections
• Or is it either/or? RT @avgwhitemale #mcn2011 #mtogo “When does playing the game start to encroach on the experience of the physical space?”
• RT @NancyProctor Nancy Proctor Learnings from Minn Hist Soc: students are extremely comfortable and proficient with mobile devices; 1to1 devices preferred #MCN2011 #mtogo
• @mia_out but that can’t be a good game anyway!
• @benwbrum manuscript transcription is fun! Is gamification bad? @MCN2011
• Why do people participate in crowdsourcing? *You* can participate in solving important questions. #MCN2011
• Manuscripttranscription.bogspot.com for all the notes from Ben Blumfield #MCN2011
• Ooh. Rights mgmt discussion! Yale’s new online catalog. In Cairo. #MCN2011
• Yale’s new cross-collection search mixes museum subject types and library subject headings in the same facet. Nice. #MCN2011
• We have a ghost in the Cairo room. Lights going on and off! #MCN2011
• Yale now has search across all the museum and archive collections. #MCN2011
• RT @ericdmj Eric D. M. Johnson Day 2 at #mcn2011 starts w/ @jolifanta picturing a brave new scholarly world of collab’n, digital sharing, & openness thru Digital Mellini.
• @ericdmj see thanks!!
• RT @mia_out Mia Great question to wake up to, ‘What will digital art history look like?’ In online cataloguing/crowdsourcing session at #mcn2011
• Digital humanities peeps! our presentation on a collaboration site for scholars is in Cairo. #MCN2011

17 Nov

• @benwbrum yes! It’s called pecha kucha
• Jane, we should meet! @janecalexander @jolifanta It’s really great to see you both tweeting about the same conversations at #mcn2011 !
• Yellow curry Yum! (@ Noodle w/ 6 others) [pic]: 4sq.com/vbtzmh
• Come across st! Yumy Asian Noodles nxt to bakeshop RT @5easypieces #mcn2011 (@ The Vortex Bar & Grill w/ 8 others) 4sq.com/ryerit
• CanNOT believe I can take pics in these galleries!!! #MCN2011 (@ High Museum of Art w/ 25 others) [pic]: 4sq.com/rVtQvW
• Ha! See ‘real’ one @ 9 tomorrow! RT @benwbrum Eavesdropping on informal demo about manuscript transcription annotations. #MCN2011 is great!
• Open access at Yale has impacted and shaped their internal knowledge sharing. #MCN2011
• Open access at Yale has created a whole nother level of work. #mcn2011
• How does sharing collections externally affect the instit. internally? Ariana French #MCN2011
• RT@mia_out Mia Share and enjoy! bit.ly/sBeoai bit.ly/vDYvKj MT @5easypieces: archive the #wpmw tweet stream #mcn2011
• Good q. MT @NancyProctor Non-linear, multi-dim. model 4 record creation + mgmt…what is role in museum as distributed network? #mcn2011
• RT @peskypeople Pesky People #wideaud #mcn2011 As a Deaf person I’d like to see cultural organisations PAY #Deaf + #Disabled ppl for their knowledge & expertise
• RT @DarrenMilligan Darren Milligan Play is how all primates learn! RT @NancyProctor: Play is often a kind of study, so “play first, study later.” #mcn2011
• Hmmm. Farris Wahbeh on archives continuum. S.t. he finds better applied in a museum world than in archives. #MCN2011
• ‘might!?’ RT @arielle_rose1 Smaller, more specialized museums might actually benefit most from online content/visitors! #MCN2011
• Agree! ( of course) RT @ericdmj @jolifanta I think *humanity* can learn something from games! #mcn2011
• ‘Games archive: play first, study later.’ I think Humanities can learn something from games. # MCN2011
• RT @forwardretreat Sarah Hromack @TimSven Office pop quiz: “Ask coworkers: ‘If you could track one statistic that reflects your effectiveness, what would it be?’” #MCN2011
• Tips for communicating better – stand up meetings, task boards, periodically work on a collective space. #MCN2011
• From Japanese idea ‘Kai Zen’ RT @exposyourmuseum Execute, evaluate, repeat– transformative practice @rjstein #focusua #MCN2011
• Only measure something if it will change your behavior @rjstein #MCN2011 how do u know if it will change your beh. until you measure it??
• Awesome buy-in. RT @sbhogarty 50-60 staff member update @imamuseum dashboard on a continual basis! #wow #FocusUA #MCN2011
• Me too, ya. RT @shineslike Yep, I want to be an information radiotor. #inspired #MCN2011 #FocusUA
• If sharing information is perceived as an addition to the workload, it won’t happen. There needs to be low barrier to entry. #mcn2011
• SFMOMA ‘information radiators’ are so noticeably analog! #mcn2011
• @jolifanta oops Tim Svenonius from *SFMOMA* – make communication visible in order to improve communication! #mcn2011
• Tim Svenonius from IMA – make communication visible in order to improve communication! #mcn2011
• It’s occupy #mcn2011 over here in the Vancouver room with IMA
• MET’s new faceted collections search is v cool #MCN2011
• I am surprised- MET card sorting w/users, they put things in pretty much same categories as the curatorial delta. #MCN2011
• @DarrenMilligan seems like you are here!
• User testing for website beginning to change the way membership staff market at MET #MCN2011
• Provide a way of creating a journey through your website. @metmuseum #MCN2011
• @DarrenMilligan you at #mcn2011? I haven’t run into you yet
• RT @sbhogarty Sarah Bailey Hogarty Rather than focusing primarily on user/audience, @metmuseum tried to match user need w/ institutional aims. #FocusUA #MCN2011
• I love that there are only 5 slides for this panel. #wpmw #MCN2011
• Judas! @5easypieces doesn’t really care about the art. But perhaps it makes him good at his job?
• Absolutely!! RT @JaneHannaSays It’s important to connect your in-gallery interactives with your website. #MCN2011
• Epiphany, memories, experience, getting lost… Are we trying to recreate the in-gallery experience? #wpmw #MCN2011
• How do we optimize for epiphany?? #wpmw #MCN2011 @rjstein
• RT @mia_out Mia Andrew L: ‘that inspiration moment’ triggered in a museum that sends you back home to make art or craft something #mcn2011 #wpmw
• What If this isn’t the right model for a museum website? #wpmw #MCN2011
• RT @HstryQT Lori Phillips @rjstein: The decentralization of information/access is inevitable. But what about support for digital media literacy? #wpmw #mcn2011
• RT @clairey_ross Claire Ross Should there be a continual academic slant to online collections?Why not play with it more?gamification would it work?#MCN2011 #wpmw
• Ha! Duh RT @caw_ Bingo “@ericdmj: Sounds to me like we’re talking about shared data standards. #mcn2011 #wpmw”
• #wpmw who is going to ask the revenue question? #MCN2011
• We need to clean up our data and then let people know we have it (other than our usual researcher visitors) #wpmw #MCN2011
• What are our online collections for?! @5easypieces Good q!! #mcn2011 #wpmw
• Should we be sending people to other museums if that’s where the best info is? Libraries don’t agonize over this! @ericdmj #wpmw #MCN2011
• RT @MuseumCN MCN @shineslike “What happens if #museums have curators of #knowledge in addition to curators of objects?” #MCN2011 #WPMW #digitalhumanities
• Do we build our sites assuming that users already buy into our authority? #wpmw # MCN2011
• What is the right mix of authoritative museum voice and the voices of visitors? #wpmw #mw2011 @edmj
• RT @MuseumCN MCN @5easypieces asks “What is the nature of digital authority for #museums?” Do our physical buildings give us authority? #MCN2011 #WPMW
• Who really gets their audiences? #wpmw #mw2011
• #wpmw #MCN2011 who are the ‘people’ we are talking about?
• Users come to our websites for hours, directions. How does this compare to our missions? Is what they do = to what they want? #MCN201!

16 Nov

• RT @MaxisLovely Max Hernández Calvo RT @ruibeep: We just launched museum-analytics.org Feedback and comments are most welcome. #mcn2011 yfrog.com/o0qbzufp / cc @museumnerd
• #sbhs spinny restaurant! 72 floors up (@ Sun Dial Restaurant, Bar & View) 4sq.com/vyaSIr
• @exposyourmuseum thanks!!
• #mcn2011 folks. Where is the rabbit hole to the ARG?!

Dominique and John de Menil

Weschler also famously wrote about some of these concepts in his book about the Museum of Jurassic Technology here in L.A. This past weekend, I was in Houston where I visited The Menil Collection, another collection full of convergences from across cultures that reminded me of the MJT. After Weschler’s talk, I understood why I was having this connection.

In this intimate museum, John and Dominique de Menil intended to present their huge collection that includes modern art (primarily of the Surreal persuasion), as well as quirky ancient antiquities, medieval paintings, and cultural objects from Africa, Native Pacific Northwest Coast cultures, and Polynesia. In the permanent galleries, the art of each of these different cultures is segregated into its own space. But the de Menils were clearly interested in the convergences between these “primitive” cultures and their own; and their friendships with some of the modern artists (whose works are in their collection as well) speak to the influence that this collecting practice had on the development of modern art.

A few small exhibitions drawn from the permanent collection make the connection/convergence. “Witness to a Surrealist Vision” is a one-room cabinet of curiosities filled with objects in the Menil collection that were similar to those that some Surrealists collected. Yupik masks, Hopi Kachina dolls, and Ecuadorian headdress, stood next to a 7-ft high horn from a narwahl, a medieval suit of armor, and devices of wonder from Europe, such as stereoscopes and thaumatropes. Another exhibition, “The Body in Fragments” brought together works modern and primitive that present, literally, the body in fragments. A tiny European finger reliquary was placed next to hands form Africa, and a Syrian phallus, and across the room stood a disembodied leg in a boot by Matisse. Love it.

Sarah Palin - portrait, or still life?

I am not really sure why the L.A. Times chose this image for the article, but as an art historian, this photo fascinates me. The props are spectacular – check out that hideous sconce on the wall behind her head, and the fuzzy moccasins on the window sill behind her. What does this mean?! Look at the blackberry in her hand! (Wait, are there two of them?)! And the flag (omg – I think it’s plastic!) casually placed on the chair for her to “lean on.” I posted this to my FB page and my friends started to analyze too. One person pointed out that the electrical outlet near the floor has a safety cover only on one of the two plug holes. Another was nauseated by the U.S. Army banner; using her son’s deployment as a prop. If you look closely at the carpet, you can see her tennis shoe marks on the freshly vacuumed carpet. You can almost imagine additional poses for earlier frames in the film.

The image is so carefully composed, and reminds me of Thomas Eakins’ 19th-century portraits of the learned men and women of his day (many of them very peculiar), depicted at work in their professional lives. Compare her to this painting by Eakins of Frank Cushing, who was one of the first anthropologists to “go native” by living with Zuni Indians in the southwest. Cushing was a bit of a rogue–and a maverick–in his day, too. Is it just me? Or is there a freakish resemblance in these compositions? On the other hand, of you turn Sarah’s portrait clockwise 90 degrees, it starts to look like an odalisque. Ouch – did I just say that?

Frank Hamilton Cushing by Thomas Eakins

His talk this morning was especially interesting because his theory about user experiences dovetails with newer approaches to thinking of web visitors in terms of the kind of experience they want, rather than as more traditional audience types (teacher, mom, family, businessman, retired person) and demographics (age, sex, race, location).

Falk argued that looking at traditional demographic info and quantitative measurement of “traffic” (to our physical and virtual sites) is pretty meaningless and doesn’t help museums and libraries achieve their goals. For example, knowing how many 30-year-old Hispanics come to the museum/library is not going to help us figure out how to get more 30-year-old Hispanics to come. Also, knowing someone’s demographic info doesn’t tell you anything about their needs–what they want from us when they come here.

Instead, he thinks we should start to think about our users in terms of their needs, which dictate the kind of experiences they are seeking from us. Based on his almost 40 years of research in the field, he has come up with 5 “experience types” which he says are pretty much universal in all people, regardless of demographic. These describe basic human needs. They are:

Explorers–motivated by personal curiosity (i.e. browsers)
Facilitators–motivated by other people and their needs (i.e. a parent bringing a child)
Experience-Seekers–motivated by the desire to see and experience a place (i.e. tourists)
Professional/Hobbyists–motivated by specific knowledge-related goals (i.e. a scholar researching a specific topic)
Rechargers–motivated by a desire for a contemplative or restorative experience

But I love it because it foregrounds the importance of visual literacy, something that I have always felt is ignored in our culture (it’s not one of the three Rs), yet which is becoming increasingly important in our world where we’re swamped with imagery. Learning how to evaluate what you see and interpret meaning from images is not innate; it is a learned skill. Reading, in my mind, is no longer just about interpreting the syntax of  spoken and written language. It’s heartening to see a major university embracing a visual expression as a way to explore and read about larger historical and cultural issues.

A few weeks later in Beijing, a few days after the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square “incident”, an American friend of mine who teaches at Tsinghua University told me that the day before the anniversary her students received text messages wishing them luck on their exams and telling them to “be good.” Clearly this message was targeted–only students received it–and was intended to influence public behavior through broadcast. Creepy.

Indeed, using text messaging to send out broadcast messages like this seems to be the norm in China. Just today I read about a text message the police in Urumqi sent out to the city’s citizens, warning them about recent attacks with syringe needles.

Really, this makes perfect sense. If you have a population that don’t all have TV, or radios, or access to the Internet, and a high penetration for cell phones, it is the perfect medium for broadcast. (Of course it helps that the government owns all the cell phone companies in the nation.) And yet to Westerners, getting direct text messages to our cell phones seems like an invasion. Our cell phones are so personal and intimate that getting messages from our government, uninvited, seems too personal. And yet, I wouldn’t be surprised if this begins to happen eventually in the West too. It will just take some time for us to get used to it.

But that’s not what struck me.  What struck me was a departure from the traditional print-to-web order of publishing an article–this article, Calling Home for Even Less, was originally published as a blog post by Matt Gros on the NYT Web site on August 18, where it has garnered 69 comments to date. In the analog version of the story, which landed on my doorstep this morning, the article was re-published in an abridged form along with a note that the “full” article can be found on the NYT web site. And that’s not all. A selection of the comments left on the blog were published in the paper edition alongside the article.

Shazam! Web publishing now drives print in newspapers. See? That wasn’t so hard, was it?

Signing up for twitterfeed was easy in comparison (although I have yet to see my fanfou upodate appear in my Twitter feed…crossing my fingers). Next problem–how to verify my Chinese phone for fanfou?? Crap, my Chinese isn’t good enough to tackle this: despite the photos, I have no idea what this is saying. It is way too much for nciku translation, one character at a time. So I tried Google agian. I googled the url for this page and in google search results hit “translate” – voila! “No plug rice blog!” Well, yeah, it’s not the perfect translation, but it was enough for me to get the gist. And I could even navigate within the translator to other pages, where I found the SMS phone number that I will (hopefully) be able to use to send updates to fanfou. Phew…we’ll find out in a few days if all this works.